Ok I just had to point this out for those who missed it, we actually had Paul Gudonis aka President of FIRST out there doing the chicken dance with our regional director and some of the judges. What a great time, and no I did not do the chicken dance, I have a thing about chickens, can’t stand them so I avoid anything that has the word chicken in it.
They seemed to have a great time with the team mascots they were dancing with. That was one of the many, many special moments of LSR this year.
Edit:
There are 2 other moments that stand out to me:
- watching the Brazilian team’s robot. It was a neat, small robot that consistently hung ringers and worked quietly and efficiently. It was wonderful to watch.
- watching Team 118 work hard at repairing their robot next to the field in preparation for the upcoming match(es). The students and mentors working together in difficult circumstances was something to learn from and to respect.
I have others but they are kind of jumbled in a whirl of action, color, sound, laughter, emotion. 
Yeah, one of the teams from the 118, 476 and 1745 alliance figured out that if they push the Brazilian team by the side that it would knock off their treads, and in the final match they bent 1/4" aluminum on them that connected to their arm. Very rough defense was played by us as well. Both alliances were struggling in the finals to keep running. We had the battery cable yanked out in one of the matches. I want to congratulate teams 118, 476 and 1754 on their great work and we hope to see them at nationals.
Technically, (edit: any) strategy used by 118, 476 and 1745 to (edit: intentionally) damage the Brazilian robot is not legal:
<G35> Intentional ROBOT - ROBOT interaction - Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed.
If the contact was not high-speed ramming and was made strictly within the bumber zone, a penalty would probably not be called. Whether it is penalized or not, adopting a strategy that damages an opposing robot (due to a known vulnerability) is not GP…
Edit: <G35> is the "“FIRST is not BattleBots” rule. I don’t believe any team involved thinks of FIRST as BattleBots and probably has to remind the public frequently what we really do
I am on 118 and I am pretty sure that no one on our alliance purposely knocked off the Brazilian teams tread. It was from playing defense and trying to prevent them from scoring. There was no intent to take the Brazilian team “out of the fight” and make their robot not function as well.
I am sure that veteran teams such as your own don’t develop strategies based on damaging opposing robots. We all scout teams to understand how we can gain advantage based on relative capabilities of the robots and drivers.
My earlier post was intended to remind teams that this is not “Battle-bots” and a strategy that relies on breaking an opponent’s robot is not consistent with the spirit of FIRST. I hope you weren’t offended…
It is alright. I had just misinterpreted what you said. I had thought you meant our alliance had strategized to make sure the Brazilian team could not score, but that last post clarified things. Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks to team 148 and 1750 for being great alliance partners. It was very exciting for us to be teamed up with 148 as we both could place high amounts of ringers. The great defense of 1750 allowed us to get a 256-0 win in the 2nd match of quarterfinals.
I would have thought this, but someone on the field (in the chaos I don’t remember who) told me that the initial impact was not the reason for the red card. I do not know how credible the source was, since a lot of things were said and thought on the field, but that reason would seem inconsistent with the rulings earlier that day, and the previous two days. Additionally, IF it was interpreted that I (the driver of the 418 robot) was trying to intentionally “tip over” 1745 it would obviously be a violation of rule <G35>*, which, to me, is reasonable grounds for a red card.
*<G35> Intentional ROBOT - ROBOT interaction - Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed.
The elimination rounds at Lone Star this year were probably the best I’ve seen in the past couple of years. Those matches were really intense! Congrats to 118, 1745, and 476! Good luck at Nationals.
I’m finally putting up the eliminations on SOAP, so people can see what happened and make informed opinions. Also, I’m offering to make my archived footage available to other teams. See this thread for details on both.
Was the Merrell Center construction completed very recently? The satellite view on Google Maps shows a construction site.
Where will the pits be located at this new venue? Will they be on the main floor blocked off by a curtain or will they be in a separate room?
This looks like a nice venue for the regional. I am a little said because I attend Rice University which is just up the Metro Rail from Reliant Arena. It was really nice this year to be able to just hope on and go back and forth from Lone Star.
Yes we are working with the Merrell Center to host the 2008 regional there nothing is finalized at this point and until we have a contract this is not official, but this is a ONE YEAR ONLY thing, we WILL be returning to Reliant in 2009. We had to find another venue for 2008 because Reliant will be hosting the Sweet Sixteen that year. We have an amazing venue with Reliant and they go out of their way to help us make this a great event for all the teams that attend. This year not only did they open up Hall D to us so that the teams could eat inside without having to sit in the rain, they also brought chairs down without us asking and at no cost to us. It is this type of consideration and the ablility to grow at this venue that keeps our regional at Reliant.
Until we have a contract there will be no decisions made on pit and field layouts so any thing that is said by anyone other than a regional or assistant regional director for Lone Star is not accurate information. We will inform the teams that are attending of all the information they will need as soon as we have details but as of right now nothing is set in stone.
Innovation in Control - 418
-Danny
The match results, final standings, and awards are now available on the FIRST website for Lonestar!
I noticed a new “Gracious Professionalism Award” for Lonestar. What’s the story? I don’t remember this before nor do I see it for any other regional this year. It sounds like a good idea though. Was this something special just for Lonestar? What outstanding GP did 57, 434, and 846 show? Sounds like the making of a great new award for next year!
Congrats to all the award winning teams!
Kymber, I know nothing about the new Merrell Center but the good ol’ Reliant Center is hard to beat. I wonder though, when Lonestar returns to the Reliant in 2009 could it be a two field super-regional? It sure seems like Lonestar and the Reliant Center could handle it. Could it be??? Me hopes!
Yes the Gracious Professionalism Award is a unique award that was started at the Lonestar regional. I do not remember why each of the teams one, but I do remember when the announced Team 57’s they mentioned that they helped translate for the Brazilian Team 1772
This is an award that BP sponsors for the Lone Star regional, we went to our judges and asked them what they felt wasn’t really covered by the awards. They told us we really needed an award to recognize the teams that exhibit outstanding gracious professionalism, they said that we teach and encourage gracious professionalism but there really wasn’t an award to recognize those teams that took it to heart. Team 57 not only translated for Brazil, Team 1772, they provided transportation to and from their hotel as well as meals during their stay. As for Teams 434 and 846 I am not positive what exactly was said about those teams, I was having to run around and deal with things for the regional so I missed most of the awards ceremonies. I do know that 846 really seemed to be one of the favorite teams among the other teams, I heard quite the roar from the field when they won the BP Gracious Professionalism award Saturday.
Reliant is absolutely capable of handling a super regional and the Lone Star Committee is more than ready to turn Lone Star into a super regional. Now here’s the but, to have a super regional you have to have 80 teams. We had 52 teams this year so we know that with all our Lone Star teams out there recruiting teams and helping them find funding we could achieve super regional status. As of right now we are not planning a super regional but if our teams pull together and recruit enough teams I’m sure we could have a super regional in the not too distant future.